System and a method of processing audio data, a program element and a computer-readable medium

Abstract

A system (100) of processing audio data, comprising a decoding unit (102) and a determining unit (102, 106) having first determining means (102) and second determining means (106). The decoding unit (102) is adapted to decode encoded audio data to generate decoded audio data. The first determining means (102) is adapted to determine properties of the decoded audio data and / or of reproduction conditions under which the decoded audio data is to be reproduced, and the second determining means (106) is adapted to determine an amount of reverberation and / or of cross-talk to be added to the decoded audio data based on the determined properties of the decoded audio data and / or of the determined reproduction conditions under which the decoded audio data is to be reproduced.

Description

FIELD OF THE INVENTION[0001]The invention relates to a system of processing audio data.[0002]The invention further relates to a method of processing audio data.[0003]Moreover, the invention relates to a program element.[0004]Further, the invention relates to a computer-readable medium.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0005]Audio compression and audio signal data processing become more and more important, since there is a huge market for devices capable of reproducing compressed audio data related to music, audio books, or the like.[0006]MP3, or more precisely “MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3” is an audio compression algorithm capable of greatly reducing the amount of memory required to store audio and the amount of data needed to reproduce audio, while sounding like a faithful reproduction of the original uncompressed audio to a listener. The MP3 format uses a hybrid transform to transform a time domain signal into a frequency domain signal. MP3 is a lossy compression scheme, meaning that it removes...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0018]The characteristic features according to the invention particularly have the advantage that the quality of decoded audio data can be significantly improved by adding an amount of reverberation and / or of cross-talk to the audio data, wherein the added amount of reverberation and / or of cross-talk is determined based on an analysis of the decoded audio data and / or of conditions of the environment in which reproduced audio data are to be emitted. It has been found by the inventors that such an added reverberation and / or cross-talk contribution significantly improves the subjective quality of reproduced compressed audio data, i.e. the subjective impression of a human listener of the quality of the audio reproduction. Thus, under circumstances in which the quality of decoded audio data is not sufficient for a human listener (e.g. because of a relatively poor objective quality of the audio signal data), the subjective quality is improved by manipulating at least a part of the audio data by superimposing a reverberation component or a cross-talk component or reverberation and cross-talk components. However, in a scenario in which an analysis of the decoded audio data gives the result that the quality is already sufficient without adding reverberation and / or cross-talk components, no such contribution will be added to the decoded audio data. In other words, depending on the result of the analysis of the audio data and of the acoustic environment, it will be determined which amount of reverberation / cross-talk should be added, or alternatively that no reverberation / cross-talk should be added (i.e. the added amount equals to zero in the latter case).

[0057]According to the method of the invention, the amount of reverberation and / or of cross-talk to be added to the decoded audio data may be determined dynamically. The term “dynamically” means that the audio data may be divided into a plurality of sub-portions, wherein each sub-portion may be analyzed individually concerning the decision to which extent reverberation and / or cross-talk should be added. Thus, a time dependent determination of the necessary amount of reverberation and / or cross-talk is possible, so that the flexibility and quality is significantly improved when compared to a static system in which a constant amount of reverberation and / or cross-talk is added regardless the properties of a particular sub-portion. However, also such a static solution falls under the scope of this invention and allows an improvement with very low computing power.

Problems solved by technology

Thus, MP3 algorithms work hard to ensure that human listeners cannot detect the sounds it removes, by modelling characteristics of human hearing such as noise masking.

In other words, audio signals processed by encoders / decoders and in particular compressed audio data frequently suffer from poor quality.

Thus, the systems of processing audio data according to the prior art have the disadvantage that, particularly under critical circumstances, the quality of decoded audio data is not sufficient.

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